2014 Giller Prize (longlist) : American Innovations
Rivka Galchen recommends
Upward Bound (2026) Woody Brown "A wondrous and distinctly brilliant debut novel, Upward Bound gives us the world from the perspective of someone rarely noticed or understood, who in turn understands and notices most everyone. Generous, witty, expansive, and insightful, this novel is an unparalleled achievement and a treasure."
Dwelling (2025) Emily Hunt Kivel "At once philosophical, goofy, poetic and so, so smart--I would follow Emily Hunt Kivel anywhere."
The Antidote (2025) Karen Russell "Karen Russell runs her imaginative strings across dark caverns of our history so those spaces can sound their own songs. The Antidote lets us see the perils and possibilities of storytelling, illuminating its powers to erase, discover, reconstruct, prop up, terrorize, delight, and collapse. Russell is truly one of the greatest writers of our time. And then also: every page is pocked with joy, beauty, wildness and the perfect wisdom of mystery."
What You Make of Me (2025) Sophie Madeline Dess "Speckled and wondrous and strange and fun-What You Make of Me reveals to us the transformations of thoughts, of art, of love. A marvel of a novel."
Dearborn (2023) Ghassan Zeineddine "These stories will stay with you for weeks and years after you've finished them, making you again laugh, wonder, and rage. Dearborn is masterful, gentle, wild, and full of heart."
Tropicalia (2023) Harold Rogers "One of the most marvelous books I've read in years...Intense, tender, and wise, and it reminds us that for each way that a family is split, it is also doubled; and that for each fury, there's a resplendent underside of love."
The Rabbit Hutch (2022) Tess Gunty "The Rabbit Hutch is philosophical, and earthy, and tender and also simply very fun to read - Tess Gunty is a distinctive talent, with a generous and gently brilliant mind."
Monkey Boy (2021) Francisco Goldman "Francisco Goldman, one of our most brilliant political writers, is also, miraculously, a Chekhov of the heart. This novel is wild, funny, and wrenching, as well as a profound act of retrieval and transformation."
The Scapegoat (2021) Sara Davis "Sara Davis's The Scapegoat is ingenious, suspenseful, wise, sad, sometimes very frightening, and often very funny, too. The novel gets at the terrifyingly convincing lies (or stories) that we tell ourselves, inevitably about that which we most need to know. The Scapegoat made me fall in love again with the form of the novel!"
My Heart (2021) Semezdin Mehmedinović "Readers will discover that Mehmedinovoic's powerfully affecting and honest tale of the dizzy perimeter of mortality is also the oldest and best kind of story: one of love."
Inheritors (2020) Asako Serizawa "These stories by Asako Serizawa are tremendous, intimate, startling and essential; they show us how the past is so often the most powerful force in what we idly call the present."
Such Good Work (2019) Johannes Lichtman "I honestly can't think of a novel I would more want to be reading in the very particular now of our world. Lichtman’s narrator is an everyman (albeit a singular one) who just wants to be good—that slipperiest of ambitions—and yet his efforts pretty much always go wrong. But also they don't. Wisely comic and tremendously moving, Such Good Work thinks in detail about immigration, addiction, privilege, power and loneliness; but it does so by mining the seemingly inconsequential for its true profundity. Lichtman never falls for the siren song of self-seriousness, and that is part of what makes his novel feel so accurate, and so important. In being open to complexity, and sensitive to absurdity, Such Good Work gets at the wholeness and difficulty and beauty of lives both ordinary and extraordinary."
The Falconer (2019) Dana Czapnik "Told with a poet's ear and a basketball player's eye and reflexes, The Falconer is an extraordinary book. Czapnik is refreshingly honest and open-eyed about the way money, gender and the demands of the body steer the overwhelming longings and frustrations of being a young woman growing up in the city. Every detail feels true and important, every small observation tells a larger story. A wonderful new talent."
Heart-Breaker (2018) Claudia Dey "Heartbreaker makes high and hilarious art from the emotional Pop Rocks and glittery junk of a certain way of being young. And vulnerable. Also, it has one of the most awesome dogs in literature. . . . A thrillingly original, wholly spellbinding, and luminous novel."
One of the Boys (2017) Daniel Magariel "Daniel Magariel's absolutely brilliant and beautiful novel is that rarest thing: an incredibly mature book about kids. Not since I read Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping have I felt so at once in the presence of the magic-logic terrors of childhood and the too real and consequential realms of adults."
The Night Ocean (2017) Paul La Farge "It has been years since I read a novel with so much joy, impatience and awe."
